Thomas D. Clark, 'historical conscience,' dies

101-year-old recalled as person who took history to the people

Jun. 29, 2005

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FRANKFORT - Thomas D. Clark, a historian who spent three quarters of a century teaching, researching and preserving the record of Kentucky's past, died Tuesday. He was 101.

Clark's son, Bennett Clark, said his father died about 3:30 a.m. at a Lexington nursing home.

Clark, whom a colleague once described as "the historical conscience" of Kentucky, was a state historian with a national reputation.

"He will be remembered as a person who took history to the people and didn't just stay in an ivory-covered tower somewhere writing books in the dark of the night, but got out and taught history all across the commonwealth," state historian Jim Klotter said. "All across the world really."

The late Gov. Edward T. Breathitt, who was one of Clark's students at the University of Kentucky in the 1940s, said Clark "probably has more credibility than any other Kentuckian in the field of history, public affairs and political reform."

Even in his later years, Clark would crisscross the state, happily speaking to any group that had an interest in history.

Born July 14, 1903 near Louisville, Miss., Clark came to Kentucky as a graduate student in the late 1920s. He moved periodically - to Duke University for a doctorate in 1932 and to teach briefly at Duke, Harvard and Indiana University, among others - but the University of Kentucky remained his base.

"I wouldn't have missed coming to Kentucky for all the other 49 states," Clark said at a celebration of his 90th birthday in 1993. "It has been a wonderful trip, a wonderful adventure."

Clark taught at the university in Lexington from 1931 to 1968, including 23 years as chairman of its history department. He helped establish the university's press in 1943, assembled a distinguished history faculty after World War II and built the university library's special collections.

Gov. Ernie Fletcher called Clark "an institution" and a part of Kentucky's history.

Former state Sen. Walter Baker, who was also a former president of the Kentucky Historical Society, said Clark was a "father figure to all people interested in Kentucky history."

"Thomas D. Clark was a great man and when a great man dies, the whole forest is the lesser because of it," Baker said. "He was a mighty oak in the Kentucky forest."

Clark wrote, co-authored or edited more than 30 books in his career.

His "History of Kentucky," published in 1937, is still in print. Frequently revised and updated, it is considered one of the nation's best state histories.

Clark was a driving force behind "The Kentucky Encyclopedia," published in 1992.

As an associate editor, he read the 984-page book three times before its publication to ensure accuracy.

Clark was largely responsible for the founding of a state archives in Frankfort. He combed the state for historical records and lobbied tirelessly for their preservation.

His interest in preservation was not confined to documents.

Clark regularly fretted that Kentucky did too little to protect its natural resources, and he invariably took the long view.

In 1998, a few days before his 95th birthday, Clark indignantly showed a reporter a denuded tract amid Estill County woodlands. "They stripped those woods over there," Clark said. "There are few Kentuckians alive today who will live to see those woods come back. They've been raped, raped, raped."

Clark always viewed Kentucky history, his vocation and avocation, as a work in progress.

"Some historians undertake to simply open the grave and live in the past," he once said. "I never felt history meant that. I always felt that history was a living thing. It tells you so much about what you did and didn't do, where you failed and where you succeeded. ...

"The story of Kentucky has yet to be told. It has yet to be presented in its true context. The challenge to the historian is to find out which Kentuckian is the true Kentuckian."

Clark's honors included a Guggenheim fellowship and eight honorary degrees.

A ceremony renaming Frankfort's Kentucky History Center the Thomas D. Clark Center for Kentucky History was scheduled for July 9.

Clark's wife, Loretta, and his daughter, Elizabeth Stone, were with him when he died at Mayfair Manor Nursing Home, according to his son.